Play
by Therabidsquirrel
Summary: An extremely short story I wrote a long time ago. A memory of what once was in the lives of the monkeys, when they were still quite young.


**Play**

The Alchemist loved to watch the monkeys play together when he wasn't busy working. Though he was always saddened that Mandarin never wanted to join his brothers and sister. The orange monkey always chose to sit by his creators side, but that sadness that his elder creation would not play with the younger ones was often pushed away by the antics of the rest of the monkeys who stumbled on and over each other in their play. Today was obviously no exception as Otto was gleefully chasing his elder 'sister' Nova around the lab with a red cloth held before him.

"Come on Nova! All super heroes wear capes!" he was calling as she fled from him. She turned her head long enough to stick her tongue out sassily before making a sharp turn to the left in order to avoid the little green monkey.

"I'm not a super hero!" she shouted, barreling up to her creator and shoving Mandarin aside in order to hide in the folds of the Alchemists robes. Mandarin was not pleased with the intrusion and began shoving and pulling to remove his little sister, only to have a hand grab his own and a disapproving frown make him pause. Otto was standing before all of them, a pout clearly on his face and the red cloth, which they could all now see was a small towel, was dragging the floor.

"Otto," The Alchemist soothed, causing the little green monkey to look up at him innocently. "What is all this about?" Otto gave a small huff, which their creator translated as a sigh, and said;

"Gibson was reading one of those big books in your library again, and he told me about this thing called a super nova and how powerful it was and I thought that since Nova's name is Nova and since she's all really strong and all and stuff then she must be a Super Nova! And, and, and only super heroes have the word super in front of their names and they all wear capes and..." he held up the little red terry cloth towel sadly. "I just wanted to play Papa. That's all." There was much rustling of cloth before Nova finally jerked her way out of the folds of the robe with a little grunt, blinking wide-eyed at her little brother.

"You think I'm really strong?" she asked. Otto gave her a rather cute, exasperated, look.

"You are really strong. Duh! You can beat me up!" Nova suddenly grinned widely at this before flinging herself out from behind her 'fathers' legs and tackling Otto.

"And don't you forget it! Now where's that towel?"

"Cape!" Otto exclaimed, although his voice was muffled from having his face planted into the floor. He held the towel up with a free hand. "Here." She snatched the cape away, playfully rolled off of her brother and began tying one of the ends around her neck.

"Now what am I supposed to do?" she asked. Otto looked up at her, confused.

"Um, I dunno. Save the world or somethin'?" She gave him a curious look.

"What from?" she asked him. Otto stood up before tapping his chin with one finger as his eyes roamed the room. They fell upon something beside the Alchemist before his entire face lit up.

"From boring little monkey's named Mandarin!" he exclaimed, flinging his arms into the air. The Alchemist looked down to see the absolute horror racing across the orange monkey's face, just as Nova let out a yell of agreement and joy and attacked. The ball of yellow and orange fur went tumbling away whilst Otto cheered them on. Mandarin was screaming in dismay, his 'sister' latching on and not letting go as he ran from one end of the room to the other trying to free himself. Their creator could only cover face to hide his laughter, as Otto went after the two 'playing' monkeys in order to join the melee. The man had just managed to calm himself when he felt a weight on his shoulder and looked to see Sprx-77 watching his 'siblings' sleepily.

"Wuz, goin' on?" He'd obviously been woken from one of his frequent naps. He tended to be lazy unless prodded (forced) to be otherwise.

"It looks as if Otto and Nova have managed to get Mandarin to finally play with them," came Antauri's voice, the young black furred monkey looking almost jealous. Gibson was standing just behind his elder brother, a look of glee coming to his face.

"Finally!" he exclaimed. "Let's go play too!" With a nod, Antauri followed his brother, the two of them tackling the other three as they whirled past. Mandarin's scream was not playful in the least, but his siblings interpreted it as otherwise and laughed gleefully at the sound of it, playing all the more harder. Looking at the red monkey still perched on his shoulder, the Alchemist asked;

"Aren't you going to join them Sprx-77?" Sprx shook his little head.

"Nah," he answered. A devilish grin spread across his face. "I'm gonna wait till he thinks he's safe and when he gets closer, then I'm gonna belly flop 'im!" He was true to his word, for only a moment later Mandarin managed to get away from his playing siblings and rushed to the 'safety' of his creators shadow only to give a squawk of surprise as Sprx let out a battle cry to be proud of and landed right on top of him in a huge display of 'belly flop glory'. It was a long time before the Alchemist stopped laughing, and an even longer time before Mandarin stopped fuming long enough to forgive them all and willingly play a game of 'tag' with the younger monkeys. It was a day their creator did not wish to ever forget.

Years later when the Alchemist was no more and Skeleton King was all that was remained, the bony lord of darkness would grin while watching Mandarin battle his former brothers in arms. Some memories, as foolish as they were, were humorous in nature and he could only grin evilly as he thought of the 'new' games the monkeys would... 'play'.

"There is nothing quite like sibling rivalry," he would whisper into the quiet darkness. "Wouldn't you agree?" There was never any answer, yet he would laugh maliciously none the less as he waited for the day when darkness would truly reign.

END


End file.
